The Longest Night
by Wolf CrescentWalker
Summary: A widowed Rogue reflects on a year of darkness.


Title: The Longest Night  
Date: 12-22-06  
Author: Wolf CrescentWalker  
Email: wolf755 at hotmail dot com  
Rating: PG-13 (language, f-bombs, general darkness)  
Summary: A widowed Rogue reflects on a year in darkness  
Category: Angst in extremis - be warned. Character death!  
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, their universe, or the whole  
mutant idea. I just make my stories for fun, not for profit.  
Archive: wrbeta, others please ask (I'm usually nice, unless it's  
dark of the moon).  
Genre: mostly Movieverse: post-X3  
Author's Notes: Being a picky perfectionist, I don't beta, so any  
mistakes found are genuine.  
NOTE: Written on the first day of winter. I do not know what came  
over me, but I seriously need to seek psychiatric counseling after  
writing this. I'm really NOT this dark.

The Longest Night

God, Logan, I miss you.

There is nothing bright left for me until she comes into the world  
tonight. My belly is so tight and round and distended that I feel  
like I'm going to burst with every breath. I can hear carolers  
downstairs singing for the joy of the holiday season, but I want to  
scream at them to shut the fuck up. The only thing left for me to  
pray for is that your daughter will put some light back in my life.

How could we have known that the cure would wear off, but I would  
finally know how to turn my skin off because of it? You told me once  
there was a dark side to everything, and you dwelt in that darkness.  
Then a minute later you said there was a bright side to every  
darkness, and that was me. You might not have been the most romantic  
guy in the world, but that goddamned deep philosophical side of yours  
was just as endearing.

We could never have predicted that once the cure wore off, it would  
leave all the women who took it sterile. The labs didn't take the  
time to study it long enough, test it, allow clinical trials. Or did  
they plan it that way, to leave the women with mutant genes unable to  
reproduce, even after having our mutations neutered out of us? Now,  
looking back over the last seven years, I can't believe I was ever  
such a fool as to risk the cure, but I did. I really thought you'd  
be disappointed that we'd never have kids of our own, but not once  
did you ever say or do anything to make me feel less than a total  
woman, less than a perfect wife to you. You'd just tickle and tease  
and tempt me with promises of wild sex any time we wanted, with no  
worrying about rubbers or foam or pills that would make my scent go  
strange to your heightened senses. And lord almighty, did you ever  
deliver on those promises.

I had you for five years of marriage; perfect, blissful, marriage  
born of fantasy. I had almost stopped worrying that you'd take too  
many risks in the field, on missions, any time you were on the job.  
Almost. I knew the worrying would never completely go away, but I'd  
gotten more confident that you really were ten feet tall and bullet-  
proof, until last March, when they brought you home in a body bag.

I sat beside you, waiting most of two days for you to heal up, wake  
up, sit up, until Hank made me see the decomposition, the graying  
skin, the rigor that came and then left again. Your mutation had  
finally found it's breaking point. Your body was dead. The fierce  
Wolverine was dead! But your voice was and still is alive and well  
inside my head. You talk to me every day, more at night, but I miss  
your strong arms and your hard warmth in our bed, in me, in our  
lives. It still isn't my life, baby, it's our life. I cannot, I will not, ever let you go.

Our bed feels soft beneath me. I lit a thick white candle on the  
window sill tonight. It's the longest night of the year, and I know  
how the eternal cycle of the solstices and equinoxes were important  
to you, like a part of your blood. You told me it was the way Mother  
Nature kept a calendar, marking the march of the seasons. I don't  
know where your soul is now, or if you ever believed in heaven or  
hell or oblivion or reincarnation or anything in particular. But  
just in case you're out there in the snowy woods tonight, stalking  
the shadows, that candle on the sill is shining to guide you home  
through the darkness. Our daughter is trying to be born, and I'm  
hoping she makes it before midnight. The water broke early this  
afternoon, but I haven't told anyone yet. I'm keeping you and her  
all for myself for as long as possible.

The telltale morning sickness didn't show up until after you  
were gone. My mind wrangles constantly with curiosity: did you know  
I was pregnant, finally, before you went out on that last mission?  
You'd had a gleam in your eyes all day, in that wicked smile, when  
you talked me into staying behind. Did you know before I did? Could  
you smell it on me, that I was pregnant, when I didn't even know it  
yet?

Another contraction rolls through my pelvis, making my back arch and  
my breath lock up in my chest. How much like an orgasm it is, only  
it's the darker side of that spastic muscle contraction. As I finally  
accept the fact that I'm in genuine labor, I suddenly want my mother  
with me. I want Storm with me. I want Jubes. You'd be proud of  
Jubilee, Logan - she's been studying midwifery to help me out, even  
though Hank's perfectly capable. I want them all to get me through  
this, and at the same time I swear I would cut every one of their  
throats if it would put you back here in the flesh to help me, to see  
our daughter born, to have her come out of my belly into your waiting  
hands. I want to see a gleaming claw cut her cord loose from my  
body. I'll birth her, but you should be here to cut her free, make  
her an individual entity, separate from me.

God, Logan, I loved you.

Sometimes I think I'll break under the weight of the contradicting  
emotions that have ripped me apart since the spring equinox. How  
ironic and totally like you to go and get yourself killed on the day  
that heralds the rebirth of the earth's fertility. How ironic and  
totally like me to get pregnant just days, possibly hours, before I  
got widowed. I try to think back on how many times we fucked each  
other those last few days and nights, wondering which time it was  
that did the trick. Was I on top? Were you on top? Was it that  
night on the roof, under the full moon? My money's on that night as  
the winner.

When did I become an even bigger pessimist than I already was? I  
wrestle hourly with the fear that my skin will turn on and kill her  
in the process of being born; with the fear that she'll have a  
mutation even worse than mine; that I'll suck as a mother; that the  
world will go to hell for mutants before she can even get a chance to  
grow up, already half-orphaned.

Another contraction brings my back arching up off the bed, and try as  
I might, I have to yell from the power of it. It's only five minutes  
from the last. She is gonna try to beat that midnight deadline,  
baby - she wants to arrive on solstice night. I'm gasping for breath  
again. I thought I was tough enough to bring her into the world  
alone, but I'm not. I need help, Logan - forgive me. I wanted this  
experience kept pristine for me and you-in-my-head, but it's too  
much. I don't want to risk her well-being. I'm gonna call down to  
Hank and Jubes and tell them to keep their mouths shut and get up  
here fast.

Two hours of pain and blood, and me screaming, and me cussing a blue  
streak that would surprise even you, you horny, profane bastard who  
knocked me up. But all I really remember of it is looking down  
between my thighs to see that little dark head come popping out, and  
she's got such a mop of unruly black hair! She's bloody and slimy  
and gorgeous and she's screaming her lungs out with her very first  
breath. She's definitely your feral daughter.

Thank god the mansion is quiet now. I guess my godawful yelling  
managed to shut the carolers down completely. Everything's hushed  
and quiet now. She's asleep on my chest and I'm full of enough  
painkillers to be woozy and warm and happy. Hank says I'm fine, just  
sore and tired, and needing sleep and quiet to recover. It's not  
quite midnight, and he's gone back to his rooms to clean up and get  
some sleep. Jubes is crashing on the sofa in the next room.

That candle on the window sill can burn through the whole night for you.  
It's big enough - it'll last until sunrise when this little warm, wet  
bundle laying on me will demand I start a new life for myself, for  
her. I know I can't have you back, but I'll ask this one favor: come  
in my dreams tonight and whisper to me in the darkness, tell me what  
to name your daughter. I can't decide, so you're gonna have to help  
me somehow.

She's a beauty, and I know you're proud of both of us.

God, Logan, I miss you.


End file.
